Gonzalez

Posted on: December 6, 2010 12:00 am

I am tired of the Padres.....I am glad I did not renew my season tickets for next year. I am tired of their complaining about being a small market....do you want to win or not? Now, they trade Gonzo to the Red Sox for 3 prospects....not even ONE current major leaguer.....extremely weak.

So You Become A Mets Fan?

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- The owners of the New York Mets again asked a U.S. district judge to dismiss a $1 billion lawsuit by the liquidator of Bernard Madoff’s firm, after the judge said the trustee may have been wrong in demanding money from them.

Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz said today in a court filing that the trustee, Irving Picard, wasn’t entitled to take back principal or so-called fictitious profit they made in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Picard argued they should have investigated the fraud.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan agreed last week to review the case, saying that judges have struggled with the duty of inquiry into fraud for more than half a century, and it may not have been the “governing law” for the Mets owners.

Picard seeks the return of $700 million in principal and $300 million in profit, saying the team’s owners had a duty to investigate “red flags” warning of possible fraud.

The Mets owners said the payments, made over 25 years, “discharged the broker’s legal obligation to its customers,” and couldn’t be treated as so-called fraudulent transfers, as Picard tried to do.

“The trustee can prove no such guilty knowledge, nor any bad faith,” they said in the filing.

The Mets owners first asked Rakoff to dismiss the suit last month.

The case is Picard v. Katz, 11-cv-03605, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Six weeks ago, the announced that they had agreed to sell a minority stake in the team for $200 million to David Einhorn, a hedge-fund manager and longtime fan.

The proposed deal was a cause for optimism for a team that has needed a cash injection since last year, when it borrowed $25 million from Major League Baseball that it has not paid back on time.

Privately, the Mets were hoping to complete the deal with Einhorn by the end of June.

But a week into July, the deal is still not completed and every day that goes by, presumably, is one more day that the Mets do not have access to Einhorn’s $200 million, which they sorely need.

The Mets will not discuss their financial pressures, so it is hard to know how deep their problems are or if they are having any trouble meeting their player payroll of about $12 million every two weeks.

Although the team is exceeding expectations with a 45-42 record, attendance is down 10 percent even after a boost from the recent interleague series against the Yankees that averaged 41,525 fans a game.

Despite the team’s surprising play, fans might not flood Citi Field after the All-Star break for fear that Sandy Alderson, the general manager, might trade players critical to their recent success, like Jose Reyes.

The Mets would not offer ticket-sale figures for the second half of the season. But Dave Howard, a team executive vice president, cited positive signs, like high walk-up ticket sales to the Father’s Day game against the Los Angeles Angels and needing to sell standing-room tickets to two of the Yankee games.

“People are paying attention and are interested in seeing them play,” he said. But he would not say what would happen if trades made the team less competitive or exciting.

“We have to wait and see how it plays out,” he said. “The team is playing inspired baseball.” Fred Wilpon, the Mets’ principal owner, said he expected the team to lose $70 million this season — well more than the $51 million loss it sustained last year, when attendance at Citi Field fell by nearly 20 percent.

So far, repayment of the loan to M.L.B., which was due last month, has been delayed. The proceeds from Einhorn’s investment have been earmarked to pay off $100 million in debt (to baseball and banks) and to stabilize the day-to-day finances of the team. Two people briefed on the talks said the likelihood of concluding the deal with Einhorn remained high.

It is unclear what is causing the delay and whether any serious issues are left to be resolved.

Under terms of the deal, Einhorn would pay $200 million for one-third of the team and would have an option to acquire up to 60 percent within at least five years. If Wilpon and Saul Katz reject Einhorn’s bid for majority control, they would have to repay Einhorn’s money, but he would retain his stake.

Even with $200 million from Einhorn, the Mets face an uncertain future caused by a billion-dollar lawsuit filed by the trustee representing the victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s.

The lawsuit accuses the Mets’ owners of turning a blind eye to the possibility that Madoff was operating a fraud while they reaped “fictitious profits” by investing with him. The Mets are fighting the trustee, Irving H. Picard, in federal court and are accusing him of distorting evidence against them.

It is not unusual in sports for the sale of a team, or a part of it, to drag on. When the Mets and Einhorn announced their deal on May 26, they never detailed the length of their exclusive negotiating period. Typically, such periods range from 30 to 60 days, but they can be extended.

In a statement issued Wednesday, the Mets said that they and Einhorn “are engaged in exclusive, positive discussions regarding an investment in the team.”

When the Tribune Company was selling the Chicago Cubs, the exclusive period with the Ricketts family expired; negotiations were then reopened with the Rickettses and the No. 2 bidder, a group formed by Leo Hindery and Marc Utay. But a final deal was reached with the Ricketts family, led by Tom Ricketts.

“One of the key questions then was, ‘Was there a credible No. 2?’ and there was,” said Marc Ganis, a sports industry consultant who was an adviser to Tribune. “If there was not, you continue under the exclusive negotiating period.” He said that going back to the No. 2 bidder “put more pressure on Ricketts.”

Rob Tilliss, the founder of Inner Circle Sports, a sports investment bank and adviser, said exclusive negotiating periods are agreed to because “the buyer is spending money to get a deal done and the seller is closing down a process to allow other people to bid.”

Seems a little confused to me?

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